famished. I started preparing dinner but hadn’t time to finish…”
Another shock. Naomi tried to fight this one, groaning through gritted teeth and squeezing Tobias’s hand. Her nails dug into his skin, and he wished she would squeeze harder, enough to draw blood, as if his pain could somehow justify her own. Their mother waited for the shock to pass before she spoke.
“There’s a pot on the fire. Just add a little salt—”
“I’m not hungry,” Tobias spat.
“Then rest.” She took his chin and guided his face toward hers. “Just rest.”
“Why won’t you let me help?”
“You help enough.” She cocked her head at his bed. “Please rest. Please.”
Her eyes glistened over, the sight enough to wound him. The suffering of his family was an endless, constant torture, and though his mother tried to shield him from it, her attempts were in vain.
Tobias turned once more to his sister. “Tomorrow, I’ll get the root. I’ll make it better tomorrow—”
Her body went rigid once again, though she didn’t stifle her cry this time; she sobbed loudly, her pain tearing from her throat and pouring from her eyes. Tobias gripped her hand, racking his mind for the right words to say, but there was nothing.
“Naomi…”
She opened her eyes, her lashes slick with tears. “Toby…” Her voice was barely a murmur. “Why?”
A pang shot through his chest; perhaps his heart was literally breaking, but whatever it was, he hoped to God it would kill him. Despite his misgivings, he finally obeyed his mother’s request, kissing his fingers and pressing them against Naomi’s cheek before heading to bed.
Rest at this time was ridiculous—the evening was just beginning, the sun still descending from the sky—but he curled on his side anyway, staring at the wall. Naomi shooed their mother away, insisting she’d rather suffer alone, and so their mother took root in her bed and promptly fell asleep. How she did it, Tobias hadn’t a clue; perhaps she was simply that tired. But Tobias remained awake.
Naomi’s cries echoed through the cottage, rattling in his bones. The sound was so maddening he thought to claw his ears off, and then he considered screaming with her, mirroring the sound of her anguish with his own—the sound of vicarious torment, of absolute weakness when it couldn’t be afforded. He tried to distract himself with pleasant thoughts, but all of them were so very miserable: the death of his father, the exhaustion of his mother, the Sovereign’s Tournament.
No, not the Sovereign’s Tournament. Anything but that.
Another scream pierced through the moment, a hammer to his skull. Think, and so he did, of the apprenticeship he sacrificed, of his job at the sugar mill, of the Sovereign’s Tournament. He winced, redirecting his thoughts to Milo, to Milo’s stupid grin, to the Sovereign’s Tournament. Dammit. A scream ripped through him, and he gritted his teeth. I’m not going to enter. Another cry, and the phrase repeated in his mind. I’m not going to enter. I’m not going to enter. I’m not going to enter.
I’m going to enter.
Tobias jumped from his bed and bolted from the cottage. His heart pounded, inciting him to move quickly, the rampant beating keeping pace with the slapping of his bare feet against the dirt road. He didn’t bother to look behind him; perhaps his mother had followed him out the door, was screaming his name, though he heard nothing but his own war-drum heartbeat thumping behind his ears, and for that he was grateful.
Dread swelled in his gut. The sky was only barely pink at the horizon; night was falling, and the pool would soon end. He sprinted down the hillside, his legs numb with adrenaline. How much time did he have? And the pool was how many miles away? None of it mattered. He would run the entire distance.
Tobias charged into town, his attention split between the road ahead and the darkening sky. With each passing minute, the air around him became the slightest bit cooler, heavier, and blacker; the pool was likely over, but Tobias kept going, hoping it had perhaps gone on longer than usual, that they would make an exception for him. It wasn’t long before weakness threatened to ruin him; he was tired and starving, his body morphing into a puddle of sweat, his knees ready to give. Then memories of Naomi’s screams ripped through his mind, and he sprinted ahead, faster and faster, until the Ceres fountain was finally in sight.
The mob of men had disappeared, the tents spotted with glowing lanterns. Most of